If you look in your bulletin, or there's also a note page in your bulletin with today's text on it, in it's Genesis 3, 8-15, and I say here the word of God, verse 8, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, where are you? So he said, I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. And he said, who told you you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded that you should not eat? Then the man said, the woman who you gave me to be with, she gave me of the tree, and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me, and I ate. So the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than all the cattle, and more than every beast of the field, on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Let me pray. Holy Spirit, I pray that you would come unto us, and that you would open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the death, that they might hear the word of your gospel today, they might hear the promise of the gospel. I pray for the one who teaches that you would forgive his sins for their many, and I pray that you would simply come now and manifest yourself powerfully. And Jesus, name we pray, amen. I've read a sermon this week from a pastor in our denomination, and I don't know if this is apocryphal or not, but he said that the Bible should, he said that John Calvin said the Bible should be preached in thirds. The third John, John chapter three, which says you must be born again, in Romans chapter three, which says you're justified by faith alone, there's nothing you can do to save yourself, and he said the reason that you need John three in Romans three is because of Genesis three. Genesis three is where all the problems started. So if you're visiting here for the first time, you've found yourself in the middle of a series on the book of Genesis. I started at chapter one, verse one, and we're now in chapter three, and just to give you a little rehash of what this is all about, is first of all you need to know the purpose of the book of Genesis. Why was the book of Genesis written? It was probably written to the nation of Israel for one purpose only, and that was to remind them of the gospel. And you say, what does the gospel have to do with Israel? And that's everything to do with Israel, used to be because God came to them when they were in slavery and bondage in Egypt and said to them, I promise you that I will deliver you from Egypt, and I promise you that I'll get you into the land of Canaan, to two-part promise. I'm going to get you out of your bondage and into the land of promise, and that was the gospel to Israel. And what was the problem in the wilderness? They didn't believe it. Hebrews 4 says they didn't enter the promised land because they didn't believe the gospel that was preached to them. It was this, what I've been telling you every week now. Now for us, the gospel is essentially the same thing. Jesus comes to us, and he says all of you are born in Egypt, except Jesus said that Egypt for us equals sin. He says, if you've ever sinned, you're in bondage. If you've ever sinned, you're inflated to sin, and he says, I've come to deliver you. I promise you I'll deliver you from your sin, from your bondage just like Egypt, and I promise you that I'll get you to the promised land, new heavens and new earth, and I promise you I'll finish the job. So as I preach this morning, you're going to hear me throw out this word, gospel a lot, and I just want you to know what I mean by that. So far in the book of Genesis, we've seen several things. Remember when everything was created, God looked down and saw that the earth was foremost in void. It was chaotic. And what did God do? God intervened into chaos on the first day of creation. That's the same thing he does to you. He looks at your heart, and it's completely chaotic. And what the gospel says is that Jesus comes and he intervenes into your chaos. And just like the days of creation where he brought order, Jesus continues to bring order to your heart. And we saw that God created male and female, and they were created in his image, and when we left them, created in his image, they were naked and unashamed. They were perfect. They were ready to go, if you will. And Adam and Eve only had one job, same job that you and I have. Believe the gospel. You see, Adam and Eve had to believe the gospel just as much as you and I did, except they didn't have to believe that they would be delivered from their sin. They just had to believe that God would sustain them. He placed them in the garden and everything was fine, and basically the promise was, you stay here and just obey me, and it's going to be beautiful. And so when the serpent came, we saw last week, and deceived Eve, she had a choice to make. I mean, they're going to believe God, or I'm going to believe the serpent. I mean, they're going to obey God, or I'm going to obey myself, and what did she decide? She didn't believe the gospel. She didn't believe that God was going to finish the job. She didn't believe that God would take care of her. And so she decided to do the same thing that you and I do. They decided to try and begot for herself. She tried to make this decision for herself that maybe there was something out there that God can't take care of her, that he knows that I ought to know. And so she ate of the tree and gave some to her husband and he ate, and they fell. And remember, they started out in life, naked and unashamed, and how did they end last week? Naked and very ashamed. Naked and completely and utterly guilty. That's where we find ourselves this morning. So this morning we have essentially the fallout of the fall. Last week we saw the fall, and that was tragic. Well, this week we see the fallout of the fall, and it's very interesting. It's not as tragic as you would think. So if you look at the first thing this morning I want to talk about is the understandable, but unreasonable response to God here. The understandable but unreasonable response when God comes looking for them after they fall. And they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees, then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, where are you? Now have you ever thought, basically when you read this passage, and maybe you've heard it preached before, you have this very sort of pastoral setting, or you have this sort of scene setting your mind that Adam and Eve have sinned, and God sort of comes prancing through the garden, you know, everything's beautiful, and he can't find Adam and Eve. Where are you guys? Now why would they be afraid of something like that? You see, because that's probably not what happened. You see, for some reason, if you read this text it says, now the Lord God came to the garden in the cool of the day, and he says, Adam and Eve, where are you? Now it's very interesting, this phrase, the cool of the day. You can't really understand why they were so afraid and why they hid, unless you really understand what happened in verse 8, this cool cool of the day thing, and in this word cool, in the Old Testament, it is the only place in the Bible where it is translated as the word cool. Everywhere else, it is translated as one of two things, either spirit or rushing wind, okay? This is going to make sense, trust me. So God comes in the garden, and he's either coming in spirit or rushing wind, and this word the day, God comes in the cool of the day, while other places in the Old Testament, it either means a day or it means the day. What do I mean by that? The prophets had this thing that they called the day of the Lord. If you read the prophets, this phrase, the day of the Lord, is all over the place, and what is the day of the Lord? The day of the Lord is when God comes, and he utterly and completely punishes all sin, and he vindicates himself in his name for the glory of himself. So now let's think about this. Adam and Eve have just sinned, and God comes to the garden in the spirit of the day, okay? And instead of saying, Adam and Eve, where are you? He comes into the garden as a jilted lover might come in, who has found his wife with someone else and says, where are you? You see there's a problem here, and now, so God comes in in the spirit of the day, and he yells, where are you? What is the understandable response to that? You high-tail it, you high. Now why is that response understandable? Because Adam and Eve, if you remember last week, what did God promise what happened to whoever transgressed his law? He said to Adam and Eve, on the day you eat of the tree, you will surely die. And remember I said last week that whenever God says something, it's a promise, it's not a threat. So Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree, and so they knew that God promised judgment. And so now God comes into the garden in the spirit of judgment, and they're understandably afraid. Because they knew that God always punishes sin, with no exceptions. Judy came home Friday night, she went out with some friends, and she came home Friday night, and I was sitting in my office, it was about 10.30, and I had a big smile on my face, and Judy said, what is it? And I said, I have a new show to watch. Friday night there was a show that came on Fox called Brimstone. Have you seen it? It was the premiere. But you've got to, this is a wild premise, Brimstone is about this policeman whose wife is raped, and he goes out, and he kills the rapist, and he goes to hell. And while he is in hell, 113 of the most notorious criminals of all time, somehow, escaped from hell. And so Satan comes to this cop, and he commissions him to hunt down all of these criminals who have escaped from hell. So he gets released from hell to capture these other people that have escaped. This is beautiful, trust me. And in the season premiere there's this wonderful dialogue, because he has not caught a criminal yet, and he has all this pathos about the fact that he shouldn't be in hell in the first place. And Satan comes to him, and he said, what's your problem? And he sort of gives him this line about how he shouldn't be in hell in the first place, and Satan says, on this television show, Satan says, you know what, I've heard your story a million times. He said, I've heard it from fascist dictators and gossiping housewives. And he says, but the bottom line is, we're all accountable to him. And he always punishes sin. He says, I hate it, but that's the way it is. That was a fox. You know what, and that's exactly, that is exactly what the gospel says. The gospel says that he always utterly and completely punishes sin. There is not one sin that has ever been committed that God does not judge. The Apostle Paul, if you look, if you want to turn there, I'll probably have read it before you get there. In 2 Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul has this wild statement, in 2 Corinthians 5, 10 through 11. He says this, he says, we must all appear, each one, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. But then he has this wonderful line. He says, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. So Paul says, we must all someday stand before God and give an account of who we are. And Paul says, knowing this terror, we persuade men. What does he persuade them of? He persuades them of just this. And he says, all of you, well, someday have to stand before the judgment seat of God and let me persuade you. Let me tell you, let me show you the deal, you're going to stand before the judgment seat of God and you're going to stand there either with your own record or the record of Jesus. What's it going to be? You're going to stand before God and give an account and try and make a case before God of how good you've been and all the wonderful things you've done or you've stand before him with the record of Jesus. Now God punishes every single tiny sin utterly. What does that do to your record? It's not so good. You see, so Paul says, what you need is you need someone whose record is complete, whose record is perfect and whose record is glorious and so that when you stand before God and he says, Tommy, Tommy, give an account for yourself. And I say, Jesus, do the talking. And Jesus says, because he has trusted me, he has completely and utterly righteous. Not enough himself, not because of anything he's done, but because I lived the life Tommy should have lived. And I died the death, Tommy should have died, I bore all of his punishment for sin. And so Paul says, we persuade men of this because the bottom line is there are two kinds of people in this world. There are kinds of people who are going to make it through that judgment and there are kinds of people who are not going to make it through that judgment. And Paul says there's only one way to make it through. That's the bottom line. That's the gospel. And so what if Paul says he ends up saying in that passage, he says now that we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become in him the righteousness of God. You see, when you think about this, when you think about the fact that God comes in judgment, and when you think about the fact that you are utterly guilty before him, it is understandable that you would try and hide. But it's unreasonable. Why? Because you can't hide. So what is the reasonable thing to do? The reasonable thing to do is to look into Jesus and say, Jesus, please forgive me. Jesus, please give me your record. Jesus, you please stand before God on my behalf. You see, that's the gospel, which leads us to the next point, which is simply this. If I can find it, that Adam and Eve give God this understandable but unreasonable defense. They are completely busted. Okay, God has come to the garden. He says, where are you? And they were hiding, and they get caught. And so what is their default mode? It's to defend themselves. Okay. Look at the verses 10 through 13. He says, so he said, God called to Adam in verse 9. He says, where are you? And Adam said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. Now, imagine if you will, a prosecutor. That's what's going on here. God is prosecuting a case. A prosecutor who comes to someone who has been caught and grossed sin. And every question he asks, the person avoids the question. Can you imagine a situation like that? And every time he asks one question, the person diverts to another thing. And so on one hand, he sort of takes responsibility, but he really never utterly takes responsibility. That's what Adam is going on here with Adam and Eve. And with Eve, he says, he says to God, who told you you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree, which I have commanded that you should not eat? Now, that's a rhetorical question. What are you looking here for, for Adam? He's looking for confession. Then the man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate. And the Lord said to the woman, what is this you have done? And the woman said to the serpent deceived me and I ate. Now, it's understandable that you would try and defend yourself, but it's not reasonable. It's understandable that you would try and defend yourself and that you would try and shift blame when God comes to you, but it's not reasonable. I mean, think about what Adam and Eve do. This is unbelievable. God comes to them. He says, Adam, what have you done? And what does Adam say? Did he say out of the tree? No. He blames Eve and he blames God. He says, the woman who you, the woman who you put here with me, she gave me the apple and I ate it. And he says to Eve, what is this you have done? And she doesn't say, I know, I ate it. She says, the serpent, you said the serpent and the serpent deceived me, so I ate it. Now, why it is unreasonable that you were trying to defend yourself? It's because the gospel comes to each one of us and asks you this existential question. And it says to you, are you prepared to fess up and own up to who you really are? Are you prepared to fess up and own up to all of your guilt and all of your sin? Or are you going to spend your life pointing your finger at your parents? Or are you going to spend your life pointing your finger at those who have abused you? Are you going to point your finger at those who have hurt you? Are you going to point your finger at those who have shafted you? The gospel doesn't ask you that. The gospel doesn't ask you about them. God did not ask Adam about Eve. God asked Adam about Adam. It's sort of what's going on here. Imagine a man who has caught an adultery. And when the church comes to him and says, why are you committing adultery? And he says, well, my wife wasn't satisfying me. She wasn't having sex as much as I wanted her to have sex. And so I guess the church or anyone is supposed to go, okay, great. Well, then you can commit adultery and you can leave her. Well, even if the wife is at fault, all of us in our hearts know that's wrong. Because the gospel comes to us all and asks us this existential question. You know, I remember this is really going to shock some of you. Some of it, mocha. You know, as I said before, I grew up in an alcoholic home. It was very physically abusive, very emotionally abusive. And by the time I became an adult, I was relatively wild to say the least. And when I got to high school, my junior year of high school, I got caught skipping nine weeks of school in a row. And just so you don't have to ask me out in the narthics, how I did it was, I would show up to home room and check my name in. And then I'd go to the beach all day and then I'd come to six hours and check my name in. And you know, when my teacher started doing, you know, call hospitals from the middle hours, I got caught. But I remember the whole time that I was skipping school. I remember the whole time I was doing all these heinous things, consciously thinking. You know what, if I get caught, I can always just blame it on the way I was raised. I mean, look at me. You know, no kid has to put up with what I have to put up with. No kid has to put up with this abuse. No one has to go through this stuff. I'm perfectly, perfectly excusable for me to go out and do anything I want. Because if I get caught, I'll just blame it on everyone else. And at that point, when I was about to graduate, I joined the army. Because I knew if I was not able, if I could make it through high school, I was going to have troubles in college. And right before I went into the army, some girls invited me to a camp. They said it was a ski camp, but it was really a Christian camp, okay? They misled me. And on the first night of that camp, some speakers stood up and he basically said, there is a holy god who always punishes sin and you are a sinner. Have a good night, kids. And I remember for the first time in my life that hitting me, you know, I may well be responsible for my own sins. I may be responsible for all this stuff I have done and I went outside and I remember just crying. Because I had no hope. You know, I figured out later that there's a formula. They don't say that Jesus still Wednesday. This was Monday night. If I ever speak there, they're getting Jesus the first night. I'll tell you that. And I went outside and someone finally came up to me and they said, what's the problem? And I told them, if not as holy, and he always punishes sin, and I'm a sinner, then I have got no hope whatsoever. And the guy told me about Jesus. He told me about Jesus. And he basically told me this principle, which is the next point. It's just this. It's the promise supersedes punishment. The god comes with promise before he comes with punishment. We see that here. What's most amazing thing about this passage is that Adam and Eve have fallen. And if it were you and me, the first thing we would do if it were our children, we would run in screaming and begin disciplining and punishing. And what God does to them here, we're going to see next, is God comes to the garden. They have sinned. They have tried to defend themselves. They've tried to avoid it. And nonetheless, they're going to be punished, mind you. But before they are punished, before they get their spanking, God reminds them that they'll never get kicked out of the house. You see, that's the gospel. Sometimes if you're a Christian, you get spanking. Sometimes if you're a Christian, hard things happen. Sometimes when you're a Christian, God disciplines you. But you know what the promise of the gospel is, is that you never get kicked out of the house. I told you, I tell that to my children when I have to discipline them. I go through it every single time, flannery. Now, we have to talk about this, but let me remind you, no matter what happens or you're ever going to get kicked out of the house. That's what's going on here. It's God reminds them that no matter what happens, you're not going to get kicked out of the house. So look at the next text, Genesis 3, 14, and 15. So the Lord said to the serpent, because you've done this, you're cursed more than all the cattle, more than every beast of the field. And on your belly, you shall go and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. Notice something here. Notice what God does not do. Notice what God did with Adam and Eve that he did not do with the serpent. He didn't dialogue with the serpent. He didn't dialogue with the evil one. Remember, the New Testament makes very clear that the serpent is Satan. It's the evil one who has come to destroy the work of God. And God doesn't dialogue with the evil one. He looks at him and says, you are cursed. You're cursed above all the animals of the field, above all the cattle. And on your belly, you will crawl and you will eat dust. Now, what does he mean by that? Is it just that snakes crawl? Do we find out in this text how snakes lost their legs? No. The first thing we see here is that God looks at the evil one and he says, you will be completely and utterly humiliated. You will never have any power. You will never have any glory. You will never have any honor. And figuratively speaking, you will crawl on your belly and you will eat the dust of the earth all the days of your life. And also what we see here is the whole trajectory of human history is set. He says, I will put enmity between your seed, Satan and my seed, her seed, the woman's seed, eats. So that the trajectory is set for two competing forces for the rest of human history to be in competition, the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of God. The art typical struggle of between good and evil, if you will. This is where it starts right here. Now, the question is, are they equal competing forces? What do you think? The answer is no. Because this text tells us that God wins. That's the gospel. God wins. You know, many of you know, we see this everywhere. This struggle, good versus evil is everywhere. It's all over movies that's everywhere. Many of you know, my favorite show is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Go ahead and laugh if you want. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is about this teenager Buffy who has chosen before the creation of the world to battle evil. She's chosen before the creation of the world to battle evil and to kill vampires and to kill demons and monsters and everything. And Buffy does this, but she goes through the whole show she is always depressed. Why? Why is Buffy always depressed? Well, you know, the answer I'm going to give. Buffy is always depressed because she does not believe the gospel. You see, Buffy fights all of this evil. She fights the vampire. She fights the monster. She fights everything. But in her mind, her only hope is that she can keep one step ahead of her. Her only hope is that she can keep gutting it out. Her only hope is that she better cover her own butt. And if that's your only hope, you ought to be depressed as well. Because all of us go through life and the world, frankly, is you're surrounded by evil. You're surrounded by bad things. You're surrounded by bad people that do bad things. And if you're only hope in dealing with them and dealing with evil is covering your own butt and gutting it out, then guess how much hope you have. You've not. Now, if you look at this text, what does this text say? This text says that her seed will bruise your head. Her seed will bruise your head. Basically, he's saying God says to the serpent someone in the future that will be the seed of the woman will crush your head and you will strike his heel. Now, if you notice here, it's the word bruise is using both times. He will bruise your head and you will bruise his heel. Now, basically, the word bruise means to strike a mortal blow, to strike a mortal blow. But where is the blow struck on the seed of the woman? It struck on his heel. Where is the blow struck to the seed of the serpent? It struck on his head. The new testament says that the culmination of this struggle is the cross of Jesus. The culmination of this struggle, good versus evil, the seed of the serpent versus the seed of the man is found in the cross of Christ. That when Jesus was nailed to the cross, when he was whipped and scourged and spat upon, the serpent was striking at the heel of the Son of God. And on Friday afternoon, when Jesus was laid in the grave, it looked as if the evil one had won. But what happened on Sunday? He rose from the dead. And when Jesus rose from the dead, he definitively struck the blow to the head of the serpent. Jesus wins, Satan loses. Now, guess what? If you are united to Jesus, guess what that means for you. You win. You ultimately win. Many of you don't believe that. Many of you here are Christians, and many of you here are not Christians, and both of you feel the same way. You feel defeated and depressed, and you can't believe the world around you. You can't believe the circumstances around you. You look at your finances, or you look at your prospects of finding a spouse, or you look at your spouse, and you're utterly depressed. But what this text says is the gospel gives you hope. The gospel says if Jesus wins, ultimately. Jesus won at the cross, and ultimately he will finish the job, and he will never let you go. This week I got an email from a doctor in Atlanta, a friend of ours, and he said, I'm crying my eyes out, sitting in front of this movie, the little princess, you must watch it. And then he would notice me, I went to the video store to get it. I usually get Chuck Norris, or something like that. And I went to the video, so I took Flannery with me. So when I put the video on the shelf, I could say, yeah, it's for her. If you've ever read the book, or seen the movie, the little princess, I cried my eyes out the whole time. Because the movie starts with this father and a daughter, and she is his little princess. He's utterly loving to her. He gives her all good things, and then he's called away to the war. And when she's called away to the war, she's put in a boarding school. And the boarding school is the head mistress is mentioned. The evil mention. You hit her gust by five minutes after. You know, mention is the headmaster, and mention cannot stand the little princess. And at some point, in the movie, word comes from Europe that they think her father has been killed. So what mention does is instead of treating her like the little princess, mention takes her, and she takes away everything she owned, and she puts her in the attic to live with the servants. And she makes her serve all the other nasty little girl. She makes them serve their porridge. She makes her mop the floor. She makes her do everything. But guess what the little princess never does? She never gives up hope. She never gives up hope that someday her daddy is going to deliver her. That someday her daddy is going to take care of her. And it's beautiful because at some point, I actually wrote this down. At some point, mention comes up to the attic. And she's telling stories to all the little girls. And all the little girls are just enamored at these stories about magic and about hope. And mention screams at her. She said, Sarah, it's time you realize there's no place in this world for your fantasies. It's a cold, cruel world, and we just have to make the best of it. Do you understand that? And Sarah looked at her and she said, yes. But I refuse to believe that Sarah believed the gospel. She believed that no matter what happened, no matter how hard her situation got now, that ultimately her daddy was going to come and take care of her. And what the gospel says to you, that if you have trusted Jesus, no matter what you're going through now, not to diminish your problems, but that ultimately you should be encouraged and have hope because your daddy is going to come back to get you. That Jesus is the one who gives you hope and he's utterly defeated Satan. He has utterly defeated all of your sins and he is never going to hold them against you. And no matter what you go through now, he'll never let you go. And someday he will come back and he will make all things right. Let me pray. Jesus, I pray that you would encourage us with the hope of the gospel, that you in fact have conquered death, that you have conquered our sin, you have conquered our whining, you have conquered everything, that you someday will come back and make good on your promise. We praise you and we thank you. Amen. Every week at Grace Seattle.